Miles Hiked: -3.3
Miles Left: 1677.2
Ending Location: VA 603 Road Crossing, Comfort Inn in Atkins VA

Owl got very sick in the middle of the night. I won’t go into graphic detail but it involved both “ends” and he had a fever. I didn’t realize what was going on until that morning when he told me, so our priority then became how to get him off that mountain and into a hotel.

Owl popped a bunch of Imodium to stop everything up and we hiked back the way we came to the road crossing. While it was slow going, I’d like to point out that we still hiked faster than we did back in Georgia. Luckily Owl’s stomach held out for that and the shuttle ride into town. It must have been absolutely awful for him but we made it.

The Comfort Inn was nice and it was right by a truck stop so I could pick up a few things for Owl. We stayed in separate rooms since we have no idea how contagious what he has is. For hikers reading this blog, I’d recommend skipping Hurricane shelter just to be safe. Moving ahead to a day later, Owl is feeling much better and can eat real food again so it probably isn’t Norovirus but it isn’t good. He’s in high spirits but please send warm thoughts his way. His blog, brianhikeshome.com does have comments. Also I haven’t been pushing this but he’s participating in Hike for Mental Health which is a really good charity and if you donate you can leave comments as well….

Our plan right now is to take a week off the trail. In a weird way the timing was fortunate as we were already planning on taking Thursday- Monday off as my girlfriend and Owl’s wife are going to be meeting us in Blacksburg. This means Owl should be healthy for that but also has a long time to recuperate before hitting the trail.

So in conclusion we’re both doing as well as can be expected, and we’re both going to be finishing this hike, but we’ll be taking a break for a week. I’m not sure if I’ll update this journal or not since “Watched Netflix all day” doesn’t make for riveting reading but we should be on the trail again starting next Tuesday.

Side note, found this hat abandoned in a shelter. Thought it was Grease Spot’s so I’ve been carrying it and washed it in town. It’s not his so I might end up using it. #Styling #CoolStoryBro